


Until We Go Down

by burning_arrow



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 21:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21483307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_arrow/pseuds/burning_arrow
Summary: As Mictian flowed into her, Lucado couldn't help but remember how everything went so very, very wrong.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Until We Go Down

_Lucado knew it was a mistake the moment she touched the goo. First rule of field work – never touch the goo. She knew that. But she was so tired. And so, so lonely since Greg died. And Mictian was singing to her of home and safety and somewhere far away from this tiny little shitty backwater… _

Greg threw her to the mat. His proud grin changed to an undignified squawk as she swept his feet from under him. In a flash, she twisted his arm painfully and planted a leg across his throat. With just a little more pressure she could have crushed his larynx. She gave him a sly smile. “How many times do I have to tell you not to let your guard down, Lucado?”

He grimaced but slapped the mat in surrender with his free hand. She gave one more tug on his arm, driving her point home, before freeing him, her smile widening. He grunted. He might be better than her in marksmanship and explosives, but in all their bouts hand-to-hand, he’d only managed to pin her twice. Something about the give and take of a fight came naturally to her. She could feel the movement before it came, knew what her opponent was going to do before it happened. It was like a dance, but only she knew the music. On the mat was one of the few places that the rest of Black Badge just faded into the background. Out here she didn’t notice the half-guarded looks of her trainers and the agents who came to visit, didn’t hear the whispers about “accelerated performance” and “possible side effects”. She wasn’t one of the “subjects”. She just was. She relished the feeling of being in her body.

She stood, offering a hand to Greg. He took it and it sent a tingle up her arm. Her expression cooled. “I’m going to take a shower.”

She left him slack-jawed and speechless, making her way through the twisting hallways back to the barracks. She did her best to ignore the side glances, the slight shift away from her from the people she passed. Without meaning too, she picked up her pace – which is why she nearly barreled into Moody when she took the last corner toward the barracks entrance. He gave her a dry smile that didn’t reach his eyes. She drew up abruptly, her heart pounding, trying to get her breath under control. She knew he knew that he made her nervous – more than nervous really – but she hated giving him the satisfaction of seeing it.

“Deputy Director Moody.”

“Jeannie.” He tilted his head in acknowledgement of her greeting. “That was some excellent sparring today.”

She hummed a non-committal sound that could be taken for agreement. Her work had been good, excellent even, but praise from Moody almost always came at a price. She waited.

“I’d say you’re almost good enough to start trials as a full field agent,” Moody said. “Would you like that?”

She had not been expecting that. She gaped a little, unsure of herself, before stammering out, ”Y-yes, sir. I would like that very much.”

It was a risk admitting as much to Moody. Anything she cared for, anything she held close could be turned on her, as it had many times before. But this was the opportunity she’d been working for all along. Field work meant she was no longer just a lab rat. Out there she’d have an opportunity to prove what she could really be worth to Black Badge.

“I thought as much,” said Moody. He paused and gave her an inscrutable look. “Just be sure to avoid any unnecessary entanglements for the next few months.”

A spike of fear shot through her, but she managed to keep her features studiously blank. Did he know? “Of course, Director.”

“Good.” He gave her a brief pat on the shoulder as he walked away. She waited until the sound of his footsteps faded and counted to ten just to be sure before letting out an explosive breath. She practically stumbled the last few feet into the barracks.

As she stripped, she could feel reality settle in again. Who was she kidding? She knew Moody and the rest wanted her for only one reason. She imagined she could feel the hum of the demon blood under her skin. At least she thought it was demon blood – they hadn’t told her what was in the injections, but the way the scientists and agents treated her and the others spoke volumes. She shook her head at her own foolishness, muttering various imprecations under her breath. She stepped under the hot water, hoping that it would sooth away more than stiff muscles.

She wasn’t in the shower for more than five minutes before she felt Greg’s arms slide around her waist. She clucked disapprovingly but made no move to extract herself. This was a dangerous game they’d been playing for far too long already. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

“You know I hot-wired the cameras weeks ago. No one is going to notice.”

Placing his hands on her hips, he turned her to face him. He trailed kisses up her neck and she felt her knees weaken. Heat rose through her body as he pulled her closer. She wanted to wrap her arms around his shoulders, twist her fingers tightly in the short hair at the back of his head, and kiss him breathless (among other things) but instead gave him a small shove against his bare chest, snorting disbelievingly. “If you don’t think Moody has other ways of knowing what’s going on then you haven’t been paying attention. He basically implied as much when I saw him coming back here.”

“He’s just taking the piss out of you. You know how he likes to keep us on our toes.” He gave her a mischievous grin, but she couldn’t help the uneasy curdling sensation in her gut.

He tried to draw her in again, but she rebuffed him a second time. A wave of anger spiked with fear roiled her belly. “Greg, I’m serious. Moody doesn’t want his subjects fraternizing with one another. You know that. If he finds out, I don’t know what he’ll do, but you need to take it seriously.”

The playfulness faded from his face, replaced by a soft understanding. He reached up, gently placing his hands on either side of her face. “Jeannie, I am not going to let anything happen to you. I promise.” His face grew grim, but his eyes peered into hers. “And I don’t ever want to hear you refer to yourself as a ‘subject’ ever again, do you hear me? You are so much more than that.”

She looked at him intently, searching for the lie, for any sign that this was just a way to mollify her, but all she could find was his earnest strength. He believed his own words, even if she didn’t. He placed a tender kiss on her forehead, and she could feel her resolve slipping yet again. Without another word, he wrapped her in strong arms, and she stayed there. She knew they were playing with fire, but she couldn’t let go of this feeling. So different from a fight, yet so much the same. In Greg’s embrace she could believe that she was what she wanted to be the most – alive and free and simply human.

_Human. What a loaded word that was. Mictian mocked her little fiction, its frightful laughter ringing in her skull. Human. Something she longed to be, something she never was. Greg had been like her, a freak science experiment, but somehow he had seemed to transcend it. Then again, he’d never seen the demon in himself, not the way she had. And he’d never truly known what went down with Brixton. She was grateful for that at least._

The demon howled through human lips as it threw her back against the wall. She’d never seen an exorcism go so wrong so fast. Or so much blood. This was supposed to be a simple assignment. She hit hard enough her head ricocheted off the door frame, and she felt a spasm of fear. The demon was STRONG. She shoved herself up just in time for the creature wearing her partner’s body to grab her by the throat with one hand and slam her back again. Brixton’s face curled in a sneer so twisted that it looked disturbingly out of place on the usually mild-mannered agent.

She broke its hold by snapping Brixton’s arm bones, sending off thoughts of silent apology, only to have the other hand strike her with a resounding thud that made her ears ring. The burning across her cheek told her skin had been broken, and she could feel the first rivulets of blood starting to dribble down. Snarling disgruntledly, the demon shook its wounded arm. With a grotesque grinding, the bones realigned and knitted back together. While the demon’s bones healed, Jeannie struck fast, wanting to take advantage of its distraction, but it was like hitting a brick wall barely covered in flesh.

The demon swung, she dodged desperately to the side and pushed off the wall. It followed her, blocking her blows with disturbing ease, while she barely escaped its fists. For the first time in a fight, she couldn’t find the rhythm. Try as she might she couldn’t get the feel for her opponent. It unnerved her. Moments later, she found herself tossed across the room, crashing through a table this time. Winded and shaken, she struggled to her feet as the demon bore down on her. Static crackled in her earpiece.

“Jeannie, hang tight. We’re on our way.” Greg’s voice sounded tiny and distant. Too far.

“Agent Lucado, you will contain the creature. Complete the mission.” Moody’s voice was sharp but still distant.

She couldn’t reply to either of them as she fought with the beast, too busy just trying to stay alive. It had her boxed in. She blocked one blow, but the demon smiled at her, the skin around the lips and eyes beginning to crack and peel. Brixton’s body was starting to disintegrate under the strain of its demonic passenger, but it didn’t seem to care. It was toying with her.

With a fluid grace faster than she could track, the beast had her down and pinned to the ground, hands like steel bands crushing her throat, stealing her air. Fear surged through her stronger this time as she tried one futile move after another, desperate to break its hold. The demon was simply too strong. She was going to die. Outrage flared in her as her vision began to dim. She had just made full field agent. She and Greg had just gotten married two weeks ago. This was not supposed to happen. It wasn’t fair.

A new sensation filtered along her dying nerves, subtle at first, then gaining in intensity. Fire surged under her skin, and she vaguely understood it was the demon in her finally coming to the surface. She wanted to resist it but right now it might be the only thing that might save her. Her hands caught fire. Literal, honest-to-god orange and yellow flames. It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it should. The next few moments were a blur. Later she would barely remember fragments, mostly bits of sound. The beast shrieking as she grabbed its face, the skin sizzling and blackening under her touch. The dull thud as she kicked it off of her. The pop as she wrenched demon-Brixton’s shoulder from its socket. The harsh rasp of her own breath as she climbed onto the creature’s back. The dull crack of vertebrae breaking, and the wet squelch as she slammed Brixton’s head into the ground.

Then it was quiet. Too quiet. She knelt, swaying slightly, as she stared at Brixton’s lifeless body. She’d killed him. And the thing inside her liked it. She shuddered and felt as if she might be sick. The flames lacing her hands flickered and died, leaving nothing but smooth skin and scorched jacket cuffs. She’d killed a fellow agent, failed her mission. Her eyes drifted to her hands then back to the body. She didn’t even know who she was anymore, what she was.

When Greg found her, he’d held her close. When he told her that everything was going to be ok she desperately wanted to believe him. It was the first time she’d killed anyone. It wouldn’t be the last.

_It had been five years since she’d felt that embrace. Five years since she’d felt something close to normal. Then came Kabul. And Greg had died, leaving her alone. Passed away, that’s what the other agents called it. Who were they kidding? He was slaughtered like a sheep and once Mictian’s meat puppets had gotten done with him there wasn’t enough left to bury._

She gripped the tumbler in a numb hand that quivered ever so slightly. The ice made tiny ripples in the bourbon as they clinked softly against the glass. She tried to focus on the mission report clutched in her other hand. Words like “unavoidable casualties” and “systematic failures” swam in her vision, mixed with phrases like “partial experimental success” and “unexpected results”. She knew what they really meant though – Greg and half his team were dead, while Xavier Dolls and the other second-generation freaks survived.

Greg always had a soft spot for Dolls, had gone so far as to take the man under his wing. It didn’t matter how many times Quinn had had to drag Dolls back. In fact, she was pretty sure Dolls’ rebellious streak was _why_ Greg liked him. He didn’t think it was fair to judge Dolls and the others for what had been done to them. ‘After all,’ Greg had said one night as they lay in bed, his hand running through her hair, “It’s not like you and I had any choice either.”

She’d curled into him without answering, avoiding the gentle intensity of his hazel eyes. Sure, she and Greg had been among the first experimental subjects for splicing. But Black Badge had been cautious with the initial attempt. Just a touch of the demon in them, just enough to enhance a few physical traits – a little bit faster, a little bit stronger, a little bit more resilient than the common soldier. The incident with Brixton was a fluke, one that she’d buried as quietly and deeply as she could. Yes, she’d killed again, man and monster, but never like that. She became the perfect agent. She was so close to human that some days she forgot what she was, until Director Moody inevitably reminded her. But even he didn’t know how far her aberration actually went and she would do anything to keep it that way. But tougher, faster agents weren’t enough for Black Badge. The second round of splicing had been much more aggressive. Try as she might and despite Greg’s soft words, she couldn’t bring herself to trust the new breed. They were too unstable, too dangerous, too…inhuman.

But she kept her concerns to herself. Because Greg was her rock in the unstable currents of Black Badge. As other subjects had died or gone mad or worse, the two of them had come to count on each other. First, she’d needed him, then she’d trusted him, and finally she’d loved him. They survived together, trained together, ‘graduated’ to full agents together, married one another, even earning Moody’s half-hearted blessing to the last. Surrounded by the shifting allegiances and political back-biting of the agency, she could count on Greg to be the compass that pointed true north toward home and love. She never had his sense of certainty, but she trusted him. So, despite her misgivings, she kept her peace, for him.

Now, here was her proof. The man – no, the fucking traitorous monster – Greg had mentored, had trusted to have his back – that THING had left Greg to die in agony at the hands of a demon halfway across the globe. She’d seen the photos, read the autopsy report. Greg hadn’t died quickly or quietly. He’d suffered. And she hadn’t been with him. He’d been alone at the end. And now, so was she. She was adrift in a sea of fear and uncertainty.

She pushed those thoughts down, ignoring the yawning chasm inside. Instead, the anger filled in the space carved out by her grief. It was a balm, to think that there was something that she could do. No, she wasn’t going to sit back and play the grieving widow. It didn’t matter that the second generation were Moody’s darlings.

The sensation of heat surged through her and she looked down as the report caught fire along with her hand. In her other hand the glass started to twist and bend as it slowly melted. With a startled cry she threw both in the sink, the bourbon flaring up momentarily before she doused the whole mess in cold water, turning the tap on with her arm. She stared at her hands as the flames grew. And as they grew so did her hatred for Dolls. First, he took her husband and now he’d reduced her to _this_. She’d been so careful and now… One day, Dolls was going to pay.

_But he hadn’t. What a fool she was. She could see it now. The rage, the vengeance hadn’t healed her. It hadn’t brought her any peace. If anything, it had isolated her from the few agents who might have helped her and brought her solace. The loneliness had grown like a cancer, spreading silently through her body, a malignant weakness that Mictian had skillfully used to bring her to heel. The very demon that had killed her husband now whispered obscene things in her head. She thought she would vomit as it described what it had done to Greg in horrific, exquisite detail. What it would do to every human if it got the chance. And it was ancient, deep, unfathomable. She couldn’t fight it. It was swallowing her whole, the blackness surrounding her, crawling under her skin, filling her lungs. She wanted to scream as Mictian consumed her._

The gun shot rang out. Eliza collapsed to the floor. Jeannie stared with a mix of confusion and dawning horror…

Jeannie startled straight up in bed, sweat dotting her forehead, the cheap sheets of the motel bed chafing her skin. Eliza had been no friend, had in fact been one of the second-gen soldiers she hated so much. Yet, her death filled her with a sickening dread. Moody had simply shot her - one of his prized experiments, his golden children – like she was a rabid dog or a horse with a broken leg. The message had been clear. No one was safe. If one of the precious second generation could be disposed of so casually, then Jeannie knew she was expendable. After all her work, all her suffering, for the sake of Black Badge, she was still just another asset, to be used and disposed as needed. She had enough self-respect to be furious – she would not be treated like one of those half-breeds – but the greater part of her emotions turned to fear. It didn’t matter how she saw herself, only what Black Badge, what Moody thought of her.

Some sick irony had brought her here, filling a position that had belonged to that sonofabitch Dolls. Just when she thought she’d finally pinned Dolls down, that freak had escaped and now she was quite literally under the gun to succeed where Dolls had failed.

By day, she was professional. She would get the job done. She’d ride Wynonna Earp and the rest of those misfits into the ground if that’s what it took. If they wanted to see her as a hardass and a snake, so much the better. She didn’t care what they thought. But at night she could feel the quiet panic setting in, deep in her bones. They still didn’t understand what Black Badge was capable of, not truly, not like she did. She’d always thought of herself as brave, but now she knew the truth. She was terrified and she’d do just about anything to survive.

As she curled up on her side, knowing that she wouldn’t get anymore sleep that night, she wished for Greg. She knew he’d be ashamed of her. She didn’t care. He could set her straight, set the world straight. She didn’t even bother wiping away the tears when they came.

_Dolls was there, trying to talk her down even now. He was brisk, wary, but in his eyes there was a tiny glimmer of…what? Pity? Sympathy? Mictian hated him. She could feel it thrumming throughout her whole body. It hated her too. If she could have, she would have laughed. After all this time, trying so hard to be human, and the one thing that kept Mictian from fully gaining control was this. The demon, the monster, whatever the hell she was roared back. Maybe if Mictian hated her, whatever she was, whatever Dolls was, maybe they weren’t so wrong after all. Pain seared through her head. The war inside her was killing her and she knew it. She could see it all now, laid bare in the last moments. All her cowardice and contrivances, her petty games. Her hatred of Dolls…her hatred of herself. Because at the end of the day, Dolls and she were the same. So wrong, so monstrous yet so perfectly, stupidly human all the same. And he still had a chance to save the woman he loved. She’d done nothing right for so long, but maybe, just maybe for once she could be the woman Greg had always thought she was. _

_She clawed her way back to the surface, shoving Mictian down temporarily. She could feel the pressure building, the erratic way her heart pounded in her skull. She was so scared. She didn’t want to die. But she couldn’t save herself. Not this time. She looked at Dolls and everything came into focus. At least she could save something. She took a shaking breath. She couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice._

_“Dolls. Get back. Don’t let it touch you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This is totally my head-canon as to why Lucado was both badass enough to take on Dolls one-on-one in a fight, but at the same time was such a hateful coward. Let me know what you think.


End file.
